The Ranger ➵ Kili Durin

PART 3 : CHAPTER 2

His skin was still pale from his recovery, but he walked and talked like he was good as new. Elvira watched with her back against a stone wall as the four who had just returned from Laketown embraced with the rest of the company. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she examined Kili with such a close eye that even he could feel her gaze from across the room.

He snuck away from his kin and pressed his back against the wall next to her, so close she could feel the heat radiating from the shoulder that brushed hers.

"My leg really is fine, if that's what you're worried about," he said as he gave her a crooked grin. She exhaled, tension leaving her shoulders slightly, but her eyebrows still furrowed.

"How? The poison—"

"Tauriel," he said quickly, glancing down at the ground. "She and that prince followed an orc pack into Laketown, she used some kind of magic," his voice faded away as he scowled towards the ground, thinking.

"Athelas," Elvira muttered, before contemplating the other part of what Kili had said. "Legolas was there?"

Although Kili scowled at the sound of his name on her lips, he remembered suddenly that he was supposed to be a messenger. "He spoke to me before we left, and asked me to tell you something," Kili said before he cracked a smile. "Although, he said it in elvish, so if I mess it up..."

Elvira smiled and turned to face him, her right shoulder pressed against the wall. "Out with it."

Kili repeated what the elf prince had told her, and watched with confusion as Elvira's smile fell, her eyes turning into stone.

"That's what he said?" she whispered. Kili nodded, his eyebrows furrowed.

"What does it mean?"

There was not much that scared the Ranger, Kili had come to learn. Not a lot that could be said or done that would make her shake or tremble in terror, but as the color drained from Elvira's face and he watched her throat bob slightly, he wondered how bad this message could have been.

She cleared her throat, shaken. "It means... 'I shall meet you at the end of all worlds.'"

"But... what does that mean?" Kili asked again.

Elvira shook her head, looking down at the ground. "It means... war is coming, and it will be about more than just the gold in this mountain."

Thorin did not know of the message that warned of war. He did not know anything was after more than his gold, for his gold was all that his mind could bother to care about.

He had ordered the entire company to dig in the treasure chamber for the Arkenstone. Something demented crawled beneath his skin, telling him that it was here, but the fact that it was not safe in his hand, where he could keep it and admire it and make sure no one stole it... it irked him.

Through the gentle clanging of coins being moved by his company, his voice echoed against the walls. "Any sign of it?" he asked gruffly.

"Nothing yet," Dwalin's voice echoed back. Thorin sneered in anger as he watched them work for him.

His thief had failed him. He felt a certain distaste towards the hobbit at times, and a general mistrust for everyone else. The voice in his head kept whispering, it's here, it's here, but if that was the case, wouldn't he have found it by now?

He hardly ever left the treasure room. He was digging through the mounds of gold and coins all hours of the day and night, and having been so deep into the mountain, he couldn't even tell the difference anyway. He nearly felt like there was not a single inch of the room he hadn't sifted through already, but the Arkenstone was still nowhere to be found.